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Old Testament Prototypes for the
HermeticTrishagion in Poimandres 31–
and Support for an Old Conjecture
Ola Wikander
I
there is a Jewish and Biblical
influence on the texts making up the Corpus Hermeticum; in
this short article I shall attempt to highlight and analyze
one such instance—and attempt to draw some conclusions
concerning the textual history of the tractate in question.
Underscoring this type of influence is important not only for
reconstructing the religious background of the Hermetic Corpus
as such but also provides a window into the interactions between the groups(?) that produced those texts and the cultural
milieu of which early Judaism was a part. Given the role that
the Corpus came to play in the history of Western religion and
ideas after its ‘rediscovery’ during the Renaissance and the
subsequent intermingling of its ideas with others originating in
the Hebrew (and Christian) Bible, it is fascinating to investigate
the relationships that appear to have existed between these corpora even in antiquity.
The first of the Hermetic tractates, Poimandres, has at its conclusion (ch. 31) a majestic hymn, expressing the joy and elation
of the unnamed first-person narrator at the salvific Gnosis that
he has experienced, and at the opportunity to impart this
sacred knowledge to others. The hymn mainly consists of three
major passages, of which each in turn is made up of three utterances of the word ἅγιος, “holy,” and accompanying hymnic
descriptions of God:1
1
T HAS LONG BEEN NOTED that
Ed. A. D Nock and A. J. Festugière, Hermès Trismégiste: Corpus Hermeticum
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Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 53 (2013) 579–590
2013 Ola Wikander
580
OLD TESTAMENT PROTOTYPES FOR POIMANDRES 31
ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων.
ἅγιος ὁ θεός, οὗ ἡ βουλὴ τελεῖται ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων δυνάµεων.
ἅγιος ὁ θεός, ὃς γνωσθῆναι βούλεται καὶ γινώσκεται τοῖς
ἰδίοις.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ λόγῳ συστησάµενος τὰ ὄντα.
ἅγιος εἶ, οὗ πᾶσα φύσις εἰκὼν ἔφυ.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὃν ἡ φύσις οὐκ ἐµόρφωσεν.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ πάσης δυνάµεως ἰσχυρότερος.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ πάσης ὑπεροχῆς µείζων.
ἅγιος εἶ, ὁ κρείττων τῶν ἐπαίνων.
Holy is God, and father of the All.
Holy is God, whose will is perfected by his own powers.
Holy is God, who wishes to be known and becomes known to
his own.
Holy are you, who fashioned that which is through your logos.
Holy are you, of whom all nature has become an image.
Holy are you, whom nature did not form.
Holy are you, who are stronger than all power.
Holy are you, who are greater than every eminence.
Holy are you, who are better than [all] praises.
This ‘three-times-three’ recurrence of the word ἅγιος is one
of the clearest instances of Jewish/Biblical influence on the
tractate: it is hard not to see in this structure an echo of the
Biblical Trishagion of Isa 6:3, possibly as transmitted through the
medium of the Septuagint—a correspondance clearly noted
earlier by Birger Pearson.2 The three declarations of “holy” are
___
I (Paris 1946).
2 B. Pearson, “Jewish Elements in Corpus Hermeticum I (Poimandres),” in R.
van den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren (eds.), Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic
Religions presented to Gilles Quispel (Leiden 1981) 336–348, at 342. Pearson saw
the Jewish Kedushah as the medium of transmission. The relationship was
also noted by Marc Philonenko, who pointed out that the word ἅγιος is rare
in non-Jewish sources: “Le Poimandrès et la liturgie Juive,” in F. Dunand
and P. Lévèque (eds.), Les syncrétismes dans les religions de l’Antiquité (Leiden
1975) 204–211. Cook also discusses the parallel, but strangely contends that
the word ‘holy’ is used eight times, not nine (probably a simple mistake): J.
G. Cook, The Interpretation of the Old Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (Tü—————
OLA WIKANDER
581
even made three-fold, thus creating a form of Trishagion to the
power of two, so to speak.3 This in itself is an important part of
understanding the background of the hymn. But I believe that
even more interesting information can be gleaned based on this
insight.
It should be noted that even though possible Jewish or Old
Testament influence on Poimandres has been discussed for a
long time, the hymn in ch. 31 has not always been in focus in
this context (despite the references in n.2 above). For example,
the discussion of Poimandres as a Biblically influenced document
in C. H. Dodd’s The Bible and the Greeks does not include any
reference to Isa 6:3.4 Neither does the recent Italian annotated
translation edited by Paolo Scarpi (2009) refer to this verse in
this context.5 This shows the need for a more thorough analysis
of the phenomenon.
The first of the triads of ἅγιος especially merits a closer look
based on the premise that it displays a Biblical influence:
specifically, I think that an analysis of the passage from this
perspective may actually tell us something about the textual
history of the prayer itself and of its doctrinal background. The
first of the triads is the only one in which God is programmatically described in the third person (as opposed to the
___
bingen 2004) 51. A similar Gnostic reception of the Trishagion can also be
found in the Nag Hammadi tractate Melchizedek 16:16–17: see B. Pearson,
“Introduction to IX, I: Melchizedek,” in B. A. Pearson (ed.), Nag Hammadi
Codices IX and X (Leiden 1981) 19–40, at 26–27.
3 The three-times-three structure of the hymn may also allude symbolically to philosophical constructs such as that later found in the writings of
Proclus, whose metaphysical system often uses the form of “triads of triads”
—see R. Chup, Proclus: An Introduction (Cambridge 2012) 125–126.
4 C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London 1935, 19542) 194–200. A
somewhat more sceptical view of Biblical influences in Poimandres and
‘gnostic’ literature in general can be found in R. McL. Wilson, “The
Gnostics and the Old Testament,” in G. Widengren and D. Hellholm (eds.),
Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Gnosticism (Stockholm 1977) 164–
168; Wilson also has no reference to Isaiah in connection with Poimandres.
5 P. Scarpi (ed.), La rivelazione segreta di Ermete Trismegisto I–II (Milan 2009).
—————
582
second), a fact that—combined with the position of the words
at the very beginning of the hymn—gives us an indication that
the first three lines with “holy” are in a sense the most important and defining ones.
Each of the proclamations of ἅγιος is followed by a specific
description of God. In every line except the very first, the
description is given using a relative pronoun in one case or
another; the initial line is the only one that breaks this pattern
with its more simple appellation καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων, “and
father of the All.” At least, this is the reading of the manuscripts
on which Nock and Festugière based their edition.
But there is another manuscript, showing markedly different
readings. This is Papyrus Berolinensis 9794, a Christianized variant of the hymn, the text of which is also given by Nock and
Festugière in their critical apparatus to ch. 31.6 In that version,
the beautiful three-times-three structure is sorely lacking, as the
text inserts another ἅγιος-line before the first one and another
one after it, and omits some of the “holy”-s later on in the
hymn. The relevant part of the papyrus runs (based on Nock
and Festugière, but excluding their restorations of lacunae and
arranged into lines):7
ἅγιος [– –]είξας µοι ἀπὸ τοῦ νοὸς ζωὴν καὶ φ[– –]8
ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς κ̣[– –]ν ὅλων.
ἅγιος εἶ [– –]ς̣ ἀρχὴ[– –]
[– –]ς̣ ὁ θ̣εός, ὁ[– –]ται ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίω[– –]
6 For a discussion of this papyrus as a parallel to Poimandres 31–32 see
Nock and Festugière, Hermès Trismégiste I xxxvii. That the papyrus contains a
part of the hymn from Poimandres was first discovered by R. Reitzenstein
and P. Wendland, “Zwei angeblich christliche liturgische Gebete,” NAkG
1910, 324–334. For a discussion and ample references see B. McNeil, “A
Note on P. Berol. 9794,” Numen 23 (1976) 239–240.
7 Nock & Festugière, Hermès Trismégiste I 18. I do not include their various
text-critical remarks.
8 This first, extra line has no counterpart in the Poimandres version. Nock
and Festugière restore this line as ἅγιος [ὁ θεὸς ὁ ὑποδ]είξας µοι ἀπὸ τοῦ
νοὸς ζωὴν καὶ φ[ῶς].
—————
OLA WIKANDER
583
[– –] θεός, ὃς γν̣[– –]λ̣εται καὶ γινώσκεται τοῖς ε̣ἰ̣[– –]
ὁ λόγω συ[– –]µε̣ν̣[– –]α
ἅγιος εἶ [– –]ν ἡ φύσις οὐκ ἑµόρφωσεν
ἅγιος εἶ οὗ πᾶσα φ[– –]φυ
ἅγιος εἶ ὁ πάσης δυνάστεως ἰσχυρότερος
ἅγιος εἶ ὁ̣[– –] µείζων
ἅγιος εἶ ὁ κρίττων τῶν ἐπαίνων
Most of the discrepancies between the papyrus and the
standard text of the hymn are, in themselves, not of great
importance to this article, as the papyrus variants seem late and
sometimes corrupt when compared to the codex version (the
absence of the 3-3-3 structure is surely a sign of this). However,
there is one instance in which the reading of P.Berol. 9794 may
be of great importance to the question of the dependence of the
hymn upon the text of Isa 6:3 and in which such a relationship
may actually help to establish a possibly more authentic version
of the text than the one given in the codex text as edited by
Nock and Festugière.
I am referring to one of the poorly preserved extra ἅγιοςlines in the papyrus (the third line in the transcription above,
marked with bold face). This line appears to praise God using
additional terminology. It ends with some form of the word
ἀρχή (which form is unclear because of the following lacuna),
followed by what was apparently a very short word—only a
couple of letters long. Both editions of the Poimandres text (Scott
and Nock-Festugière) restore this word, in my view quite
correctly, as ὤν (“being” or “the one who is”).9 In this article, I
will argue that this restoration is given further support by the
very connection to the Isaiah Trishagion discussed above, and
that it can be given quite a specific meaning when compared to
that text.
According to the admittedly overly emendation-prone edition of Scott, the very first line of the Poimandres hymn describes
9 As did Schmidt and Schubart in their early edition of the papyrus: C.
Schmidt and W. Schubart, Altchristliche Texte (Berlin 1910) 112.
—————
584
God as ὁ πρὸ ἀρχῆς ὤν,10 i.e., “the one who existed before the
beginning.” The whole first line in his version thus runs:
ἅγιος ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων, (ὁ πρὸ) ἀρχῆ(ς ὤν)
That is, Scott tried to incorporate the extra line of the Papyrus
Berolinensis into the text of the prayer proper and make the
words of the papyrus an integrated part of the three-timesthree structure. With this one may or may not agree, but it is
quite possible that there is good reason for regarding the
emended line with ἀρχή and ὤν as an original part of the text.
First, Scott’s emendation would create a better balance between the first line and the two following ones, which (as we
have seen) both end with an attributive description of God
introduced by a relative pronoun (οὗ ἡ βουλὴ τελεῖται ἀπὸ τῶν
ἰδίων δυνάµεων and ὃς γνωσθῆναι βούλεται καὶ γινώσκεται
τοῖς ἰδίοις). Scott’s version gives the first line a similar ending,
not, of course, using a relative pronoun, but with a participle
and a definite article, which naturally creates a very similar
effect and thus balances the lines well. The other editors, while
accepting the restored ὤν, have slightly different reconstructions of the line, presupposing different prepositions: Nock and
Festugière have [εἰ]ς̣ ἀρχὴ[ν ὤν], while Schmidt and Schubart
have [ἀπ’] ἀρχῆ[ς ὤν]. Nock-Festugiére’s version may well be
the most plausible, as they read an uncertain sigma as the last
letter of the preposition, but the identity of that word is not of
any importance for the point made in this article, and I shall
thus continue to use Scott’s version of the line, as it exemplifies
the possibility of reading these words as a part of the first line of
the Poimandres hymn, which creates a compelling poetic balance
in the lines.
There is, however, yet another and more fascinating reason
to believe that something along the lines of Scott’s reconstruction may have been the original version of the hymn’s first
line (regardless of which preposition may have been involved). I
10
W. Scott, Hermetica I–IV (Oxford 1924–1926).
—————
OLA WIKANDER
585
would argue that it also has a distinct and very specific religiohistorical background that goes back to Isa 6:3.
The Hebrew Trishagion is:
qādôš qādôš qādôš YHWH ṣĕbāʾôt
The beginning of this phrase is, of course, the threefold repetition of the word “holy,” which is then followed by the Sabaoth
name of the Israelite God, the version of the divine name most
clearly associated with God’s presence in the Jerusalem
Temple.11 This name consists of two parts, the first of which is
the Tetragrammaton itself and the second the plural of the word
ṣābāʾ, “army, host.” That is, there are two parts of the expression, parts which can easily be interpreted as two individual
names of God—as, indeed, we know that they were, as Sabaoth
appears in many sources interpreted as a name and not as the
second part of a construct chain (“YHWH of hosts”), as it
originally was.
We now return to the first line of the Poimandres hymn according to Scott, and to the expression ὁ πρὸ ἀρχῆς / εἰς ἀρχὴν
ὤν. This, I would propose, might not simply be a generic
description of a pre-existent divinity, but rather a Hermetic
exegetical comment on or interpretation of the first part of the
Sabaoth expression, that is the Tetragrammaton itself. As is well
known, there was an ancient and very persistent tradition of
interpreting the YHWH name as being somehow derived from
or connected to the Hebrew verb hyh/hwh, “to be.” This interpretation is of course in evidence in the Hebrew Bible itself, in
the very famous passage Ex 3:14, where God defines himself
(and seemingly interprets his own name) as ʾehyê ʾ ăšer ʾehyê,
“I am that I am.” This explanation is rendered by the Septuagint as ἐγώ εἰµι ὁ ὤν, “I am the being [one].”
11 On the Sabaoth name see e.g. T. N. D. Mettinger, “YAHWEH
ZEBAOTH,” in K. van der Toorn et al. (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons
in the Bible2 (Leiden/Boston/Cologne 1999) 920–924, and H. J. Zobel,
“ṣebāʾôt,” in G. J. Botterweck et al. (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old
Testament XII (Grand Rapids 2003) 215–232, both with ample references.
—————
586
Given the strong and already noted correspondence in structure between the Hermetic hymn at the end of Poimandres and
the Isaian Trishagion, I propose that the possible expression with
ὤν in the hymn has as its background such a philosophical reinterpretaion of the YHWH name as “the being one,” which
would fit perfectly with the prototype in Isa 6:3. That is, if (for
the sake of argument) we base ourselves on Scott’s proposed reconstruction, we get the following equation:
ἅγιος [– –] ὁ [– –] ὤν = qādôš YHWH
This would mean that the Septuagint—or a tradition similar to
it—would indeed have been the path of transmission, and it
provides a new piece of circumstantial evidence pointing towards the commonly adopted restoration of the papyrus with
ὤν being correct, as it fits with the probable historical background of the hymn. A connection via the participle ὤν would
also give the first line a deep sense of theological and philosophical import, grounding the definition of the Deity not only
in Jewish religious thought but also, of course, in Platonist discourse.
The next line of the Poimandres hymn speaks of God as the
one whose will is perfected “by his own powers” (ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων
δυνάµεων). What are these “powers”? In the thirteenth Hermetic tractate, On Rebirth, a list of various “powers” is indeed
given as part of an initiatory experience, powers which are imparted to the soul of the initiand. These may very well be the
powers alluded to here—but we must not forget that the hymn
is talking here of God’s powers, not those attainable by a man.
These may be the same, but of that we cannot be sure, and in
any case Poimandres and On Rebirth are two different texts, albeit
closely related to each other.
If we apply the same reasoning to this second line as we did
to the first, another source for the “powers” comes into focus:
the second part of the Sabaoth name, the word ṣĕbāʾôt itself,
“hosts” or “armies.” Thus, continuing our previous exercise:
ἅγιος [– –] τῶν [ἰδίων] δυνάµεων = qādôš [– –] ṣĕbā’ôt
—————
OLA WIKANDER
587
The hosts of the Israelite God thus provide a conceptual backdrop for the second line, making yet another exegetical transformation of Old Testament material by combining this idea
with the more ‘spiritual’ powers associated with other Hermetic
texts such as On Rebirth and completing the Sabaoth name as
inherited from Isa 6:3. This name explicitly defines God as the
“Lord of the Powers” that the Hermetic text ascribes to him.
The idea that the Hermetic reference to τῶν ἰδίων δυνάµεων
is derived from the Sabaoth name is rendered all the more
probable by the fact that YHWH ṣĕbāʾôt is actually rendered by
the LXX translators as κύριος (ὁ θεὸς) τῶν δυνάµεων in a
number of places—as a matter of fact, this is the translation
used exclusively in the LXX Psalter.12 To be sure, this rendering does not occur in the LXX version of Isa 6:3 (which uses
κύριος σαβαωθ), but its well-attested existence proves that this
exegetical interpretation of the Sabaoth name was known and
current in Hellenistic Judaism. Therefore, it is my contention
that the author of the Poimandres hymn used this interpretation
as a way of integrating the ideas of the Jerusalemite Sabaoth
title and the Hermetic idea of the “powers,” as described in On
Rebirth.
The allusion to the Sabaoth name places this Hermetic
Trishagion in the tradition of the presence of the Israelite God in
the Temple and his rule from the throne of the Cherubim.
Also, it is notable that the three qādôš utterances in Isaiah are
given by the quasi-angelical Seraphim. In the Poimandres, the
words are spoken by a human being transformed by Gnosis
and thus taking part in the angelic realm—and this fact is reinforced by the quotation from the words of the Seraphim. The
protagonist has, so to speak, risen to their level, to the level of
the heavenly hosts themselves, praising God. This is yet
another illustration of how God’s will is “perfected by his own
powers”: the narrator in one sense becomes one of those powers,
12 Mettinger, in Dictionary 920, and Zobel, in Theological Dictionary 217.
Zobel gives a complete list of these instances.
—————
588
through his identification with the “hosts” of YHWH. The
“powers” in the passage are both the angelic and/or astral
powers of the Israelite God and the metaphysical powers of
Corpus Hermeticum XIII, which are homologically identified with
one another.
But at this point the divine name as given in the Isaiah
Trishagion is ‘used up’, so to speak. The first triad of the hymn
has a third description, which has no prototype in the Biblical
text: the third line states that God “wishes to be known
(γνωσθῆναι) and becomes known (γινώσκεται) to his own.”
Why does the Hermetic text add this further description?
It is highly significant that the description contains no less
than two forms of the verb γινώσκω, which, of course, shares a
root with the word Gnosis itself. This third line is clearly
focused on what is the specific message of the whole tractate:
that divine self-knowledge is the way to salvation. It is thus no
coincidence that this line was added to those apparently inherited from Isaiah: it is this specific line that highlights what is
special about the text, what separates it from the tradition it
received. The hymn begins by praising God in terms related
directly to Biblical prophecy and the Sitz im Leben of the
Jerusalem Temple, but it then adds its own, ‘Gnostic’, twist: ὃς
γνωσθῆναι βούλεται καὶ γινώσκεται τοῖς ἰδίοις. Thus, both
the inherited similarities with the Isaiah text and the new additions to it help cement a deep message of the hymn: that the
Hermetic initiate can rise to the level of the Seraphim in the
temple and utter the Trishagion that they do, and that this takes
place through salvific Gnosis. Birger Pearson was of the view
that the formulations of the first trishagion part of the hymn are
“nothing that could not have occurred in a Jewish community,”13 but in this final phrase about God wanting to be
known to his own, I believe the specific theological views of the
Hermetic author come into focus, a fact highlighted by the lack
of a corrspeonding phrase in the Isaiah prototype.
13
Pearson, in Studies 342.
—————
OLA WIKANDER
589
There may be yet another influence from Isaiah on this Hermetic Trishagion. Certain phrases of the hymnic passage bear a
resemblance to the titles of the ideal royal child, whose birth is
announced in Isa 9. That child (today often identified with
Hezekiah or some other royal offspring) is there given the ceremonial names peleʾ yôʿēṣ, ʾēl gibbôr, ʾăbî ʿad, and śār šālôm
(“wondrous counsel-giver,” “mighty god,” “eternal father,” and
“lord of peace”). Three of these four titles have close analogues
in the Poimandres passage. The second line speaks of God’s
βουλή or “counsel,”14 the first describes him as a “father” who
has existed since before the beginning of time. The description
of a “mighty god” reminds one of the whole third triad, especially the phrase ὁ πάσης δυνάµεως ἰσχυρότερος. If this parallel
is indeed due to historical influence, it is not strange that the
last epithet (“lord of peace”) finds no clear correspondence in
the Hermetic text, as that title is more overtly tied to a perceived political role for the coming ruler, which would of
course not be very relevant as a description of the God of the
Poimandres. Indeed, as the text very much focuses on the ‘otherworldliness’ of the deity, such an expresson would seem quite
out of place in the context.
The mention of God’s βουλή may itself serve a very specific
religio-historical purpose. The Platonizing milieu from which
the Hermetic writings emerged did not originally have the
Heilsgeschichte-perspective so pervasive in Old Testament
thought. The express reference to God having a “counsel” or
The idea of God’s “counsel” or “plan” occurs at many places in the
Old Testament. The noun ʿēṣâ, which is the usual term for this concept, is
derived from the same root as the verb yāʿaṣ (“to advice”) and its participle
yôʿēṣ, discussed above. Job 38:2 describes the Israelite God as the lord of
this ʿēṣâ, meaning his supernal plan for the world. In a previous study, I
have discussed a possible Mesopotamian background for this expression and
its implications—in Job, the “plan” or “counsel” seems to consist of God’s
creative activity combined with his battles against the forces of chaos: O.
Wikander, “God’s Plan in Job and the ‘Wise Things’ of Marduk,” in G.
Eidevall and B. Scheuer (eds.), Enigmas and Images: Studies in Honor of Tryggve
N. D. Mettinger (Winona Lake 2011) 227–236.
14
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590
“plan” gives the text such a salvific historical dimension, in
which the enlightenment of individual humans is part of a great
scheme of God’s calling them to himself through Gnosis.
All in all, we can see how the author of the Poimandres hymn
used ancient Israelite material in order to make certain special
points; it is my belief that these points (and thus the meaning of
the hymn as such) can be elucidated more clearly if these historical antecedents and alterations are recognized.15
May, 2013
Centrum för Teologi och
Religionsvetenskap
Lund University
221 00 Lund, Sweden
[email protected]
15 I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer(s) of GRBS for suggestions concerning improvements and two bibliographical references.
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